


End of Life Care

by orphan_account



Series: Endings [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Coma, Death, M/M, end of life, mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 05:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1333099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg and Mycroft had spent years together until dementia creeping into Mycroft's brain slowly robbed him of who he was. Greg unwillingly enlists the help of a care home for Mycroft's growing needs, visiting daily for numerous hours. One night, after reluctantly leaving the weakening side of his lover, Greg receives a call that the end is nearing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of Life Care

**Author's Note:**

> My knowledge of EoLC and dementia is drawn directly from my work as a care worker at a home for elderly individuals with dementia. It is as accurate as I can make it but some things may be disputed.
> 
> Typed awkwardly on an iPad, apologies for typos.

The call had woken him from barely an hour of sleep and had echoed through the bedroom loudly. He had answered it sleepily but immediately on guard and his body had tightened when he heard Maureen speak. 

_"Greg? Sorry it's so late. It's Maureen from Courtside Lodge. I wanted to call and give you the opportunity to come and be with Mycroft, he has weakened since you left and I think that he could go at any time. We're making ten minute observations and I'm sure your presence would be an enormous comfort to him."_

Greg had dressed and gathered a few belongings in a hurry and threw himself into the car. His heart raced as he drove, hoping for Mycroft to still be living when he got there. They'd talked about their preferences in an awkward conversation when Mycroft was first diagnosed with dementia, while he still had capacity to make vital decisions, and they had decided no heroic measures would be taken and, just weeks ago, all medication - with the exception of analgesics via a syringe driver - would be stopped. But even with decisions made, death was frightening and the knowledge of being so close to losing the man he loved made bile burn his throat. His palms were sweating as he pulled into the vast car park of the care home, glad to see numerous lights on and of the knowledge that three members of care staff he liked were on shift tonight. 

He sat for just a moment, catching his breath, before he got out if the car and walk to the door. He rang the access buzzer twice and waited for the voice over the speaker.

"Hello?"

"It's Greg Lestrade, Maureen called me." He cleared his throat.

"Of course, I'll buzz you in."

The door clicked open a moment later and Greg stepped into the encompassing heat of Courtside Lodge's vast hallway. The floor up until the resident lounges was quarry tiled with a beautiful peacock pattern and Greg's shoes clipped as he walked toward the office directly on his right. He was greeted by a short, busty care assistant named Gillian. She was young, early twenties at the most, and she offered him a warm smile as she drew her hands out of the pockets of her lilac tunic. 

"Hi Greg," she said softly. "How are you?" Greg titled his head and shrugged; how was he? He didn't know anymore, he rarely thought about it. "Come on, I'll take you down to Mike." She led Greg through familiar halls to the room that Mycroft had. His hospital bed was raise high for ease of the care staff who were attending to him that night and the guards on the sides pulled up and covered in waterproof, padded protectors, in effect cocooning the comatose waif in his bed. Greg's breath hitched, shocked how a couple of hours has changed Mycroft's face. Gillian watched the silently.

"Hi love," Greg approached the bed and leaned over, kissing Mycroft's cold forehead. He didn't move, his eyes bare fluttered behind their cold lids, and his breathing remained shallow. "If you missed me this much you could have just been difficult for them," he tried to joke but the words were catching in his throat. "I'm here." He smoothed his thumb over the light freckles on Mycroft's brow and leaned down to kiss him again. He sniffed and exhaled a deep sigh as he straightened and turns to Gillian with a wet-eyes smile that was so small it broke the carer's heart. "Thank you, Gillian."

She nodded, "can I get you coffee?"

Greg shook his head, "No thank you." When Gillian left, Greg reached for the controls of the bed and lowered it to its furthest point then slipped into the uncomfortable chair beside it. He reached in and took Mycroft's hand for a minute, smoothing his thumb back and forth over the protruding veins. "I should call Sherlock," he spoke as normally as the lump in his throat would allow, "But what do I say?"

A slight shudder in Mycroft's breathing silenced Greg for a minute and he watched him, relieved when his bony chest continued to rise and fall beneath the pyjama top and loose, cotton covers. 

He let go of Mycroft's hand and took the folder from the small locker beside the head of the bed where a lamp illuminated the room. He flicked it open to the first page. It was printed full of Mycroft's 'need to know' details like name, mobility, a turning chart to prevent pressure sores and an input and output record. He checked when Mycroft had been placed into the position he was now in - on his left with a pillow propping his back - and when his incontinence pad had last been changed. Pleased that he'd been made comfortable just before he arrived, he folded it closed and put it back on the locker. Beside the lamp was a cup if water with a sponge dabber inside. He got to his feet and picked it up, swirling the sponge around to moisten it, then brought the sponge to Mycroft's mouth. He first wet his lips then pushed the sponge inside his open mouth to dampen the inside. Mycroft's tongue moved against the moment and Greg felt a rush of assurance that the man was still holding on.

He put the cup down and bent awkwardly low kiss Mycroft's cheek. "I'm going to call Sherlock, I'll be just outside and I'll come right back in a few minutes. OK?" He kissed his cheek again and straightened, clutching his aching back. He moved to the door and left the room, glancing at Mycroft before he stepped away, his body sore and his heart beginning to crumble.

The phone rang twice before it was answered, "Yes?"

"Hi - it's me." 

"Did.... Has he...?"

Greg swallowed. "No, but he's very weak, he's in a kind of coma. It won't be long." He would never say so but eh heard the choke in Sherlock's breath at his words and it made his eyes well up. "You don't have to be here, but you can be."

"I don't think - I wouldn't,"

"That's OK Sherlock. I understand. I'll keep you up to date." He was almost relieved that Sherlock was unsure about being there for Mycroft's death. He wanted to be with Mycroft alone, to grieve alone, to say goodbye alone. He could have never told Sherlock to stay away, he wouldn't have stopped anybody being with their loved ones at this time, but age had changed Sherlock and his brothers mortality frightening him and that had allowed Greg to be with Mycroft himself and he was perversely OK with that.

He returned to Mycroft as soon as the call ended, secure around him knowing he would be there until the end, no matter what. As he stepped in, Chloe, the third carer on that night, smiled at him from her crouched position over the folder where she was filling out the checks she'd completed. His heart skipped a beat. "I just repositioned him, to keep him comfortable," she had a calm, warm voice and it settled Greg instantly. He nodded and thanked her as she left. 

He sat back into the chair, preferring Mycroft's new position so that he could see his face, and reached over and took his hand again. "I talked to Sherlock. He's upset, of course. He's aware. John is with him, so he'll be OK. It's me and you tonight. I brought a book - don't you lie there silently criticising me, you hear me!?" He searched Mycroft's face, hoping in him somewhere that Mycroft would suddenly wake and be his old self again, that this was temporary. Mycroft's eyes moved behind light lashes but it was minor and meaningless. Greg just hoped he could hear. 

He reached into the bag he'd brought with him and took out the book - The Fair to Middling. He opened it to the front page and examined it, the notes made by both Mycroft and Sherlock, and was amused at the inner minds of the two boys as they scrawled dissections of the children's book. He began to read, quietly at first and then a little louder, watching Mycroft for movement every so often. Of course he didn't move, his breathing remained shallow and but for occasional humming to his breathing, he made no sound. 

It felt like hours had passed when, forty-five minutes later Gillian appeared in the doorway, knocking gently before she stepped inside. "I bought you a coffee." She smiled and handed Greg a delicate china cup brimming with strong black coffee.

Despite his earlier decline of the offer, he accepted the drink gratefully and thanked her fully, "Bless you, thanks."

"He's peaceful." She stood with her hands in her pockets offering guarded body language while her voice and kind words were open and loving. Greg nodded, sipping his coffee. "We're all going to miss him, but I think Maureen will be very sad. She and Mycroft met in the middle when others of us perhaps lacked the mind he needed." She spoke wisely despite her youth. Greg nodded, amused at the sentiment.

"That's true, Maureen has her ways." He replied, not realising that while she spoke in the past tense, he kept it present.

"Just call if you need anything." She insisted as she left, pulling the door over behind her. 

Greg placed the book and his coffee on the locker and reached into the bed for Mycroft's hand. "Open your eyes, My..." His voice was feeble, shaking on Mycroft's shortened name. "I can't lose you, not again, not completely." He tightened his fingers around Mycroft's cold, slim hand and leaned impossibly over to press their foreheads together. "Don't go."

Tears fell from Greg's lashes in heavy droplets, uncontrolled and unstoppable. Loving Mycroft had got him through the changes with dementia, the forgetting, the weight loss and depression, the anger and lashing out, the strange behaviour and compulsions and the vacant expressions on his face as the illness progressed and it hurt so deeply that love, no matter how strong, was not enough to cancel out the power of death. While he was certain he preferred a peaceful death for Mycroft over heroic measures or prolonged suffering, he would still take his life over him ceasing to exist.

He felt the small breaths against his cheek as he moved closer to Mycroft, cold against the streaks the tears had made on his aged face. He kissed Mycroft's eyelids in term and squeezed his hand tighter. "I'll miss you and I don't want to let you go but I know that you're tired and you've had enough. You can let go, love. If you're done here, if you want to go I'll be here to hold your hand. You're not alone. You can go." He whispered so quietly but he knew Mycroft was close enough to hear. He kissed his cheeks and then his forehead and whispered again. "It's OK. I'm right here, you can go."

Keeping hold if his hand, Greg sat back into the chair and dried his eyes with the sleeve of his free arm, sniffling away the congestion in his nose as sadness built pressure in his entire head, making his brain ache and his eyes sting. He felt his throat block painfully and tired to breath through the painful grief. He hadn't understood how much life would change when Mycroft was first diagnosed. He hadn't been prepared for Mycroft not knowing who he was or calling him Dad. It had shocked him to see Mycroft's body betray him, to go from poised and private to wetting himself and being weak and hunched. Mycroft had mixed memories with the present, remembering days out and thinking he'd just had them or that Greg was Sherlock and talking about their childhood. Greg had gone through months of bathing and toileting Mycroft himself, caring for him twenty four seven before he'd turned to the carers at Courtside for support. It had broken Greg's heart to watch them wash him intimately and assist him with toileting, to watch them feed him and talk to him, at times, like a two year old rather than a grown man.

Life hadn't been the same without Mycroft's mind and, while still sad, Greg felt like it had prepared him this day. Mycroft had been gone a long time, this would just been the follow up to a gradual slide. But yes, it still hurt. Tremendously. Sometimes he felt as though he hadn't done enough, other times he felt assured that he had done all he could.

He sent Sherlock a text a little before three am, letting him know that Mycroft was much the same but that his breathing was slowing. Sherlock had responded quickly, telling Greg to call him if anything changed, and Greg promised he would. As he placed the phone down on the locker, beside the half-drunk coffee that had now gone cold, he stared into Mycroft's face and knew instantly. He took a deep breath and then another and then reached out, placing the back of his hand in front of Mycroft's mouth and nose. He felt nothing, could no longer see his chest rising or hear the gurgling of fluid in his lungs. He took Mycroft's hand and held it then felt along his wrist for a pulse - there wasn't one. He felt calm, but sadness built quickly and his eyes filled with hot tears, his chin quivered as he tried not to cry out, and he held tightly to Mycroft's hand. 

And then he called for help, "Maureen! Maureen!"

It took short minutes for the carer in her forties to arrive, knowing immediately, with a look of sadness, acceptance and comfort mingling her features into something reassuring for Greg. "Has he?" She asked and reached for Mycroft's hand, "can I?" She asked gently and prised Greg's fingers away for a moment. She found no pulse and sighed gently. She nodded at Greg and then rested her hand on Mycroft's forehead. "Rest in peace, Mycroft." She said softly. "You stay, I'll call the coroner and the on-call GP." She touched Greg's shoulder as she left him alone. The door closed behind her and Greg broke down, falling weakly into the chair, and sobbed. 

The end had come and it had been subtle and unfitting and Greg hurt from every muscle. Tears fell down his cheeks and his heart felt both heavy and empty as loss seeped into his veins in place of blood. They'd planned to be old together, to visit countries and live in a cottage away from the city and life, to live together in their own happiness, happiness that had been a long time coming. Greg felt lost and alone, staring at the skeletal body that had once held inside the spirit of the man he'd loved. Crying, he reached for the phone. It rang twice when he dialled. 

"Sherlock? He's gone."


End file.
